


Big Boy Research

by blingeekingdave



Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Gen, Mentorship, Science, Tony Stark Has A Heart, mentoring relationships are a Big Deal, moderately accurate portrayal of the research process, the oc is a science man peter works with in nyc, tonys labs are upstate now after all
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-09
Updated: 2017-08-11
Packaged: 2018-12-13 02:42:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11750388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blingeekingdave/pseuds/blingeekingdave
Summary: Peter decides he would really like if his Stark Internship was a little bit more than just a cover.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, I'm an undergraduate physics researcher at my university, and I just wanted to contribute something to bulk of writing with that sort of perspective. There's a sizable emphasis on mentorship in academia and research, and this was something I hadn't yet see anyone really dive into with Peter and Tony. Having a good mentoring relationship can really make or break certain lab groups and research and stuff like it's legit. There are people who end up doing research in a slightly different field because they needed to switch graduate advisers. I also wanted to be somewhat realistic with how research and lab work actually work. It's a little more than just tinkering unfortunately.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy.
> 
> (Not Beta'd)

Being a vigilante superhero wasn't something that Peter could put on his college applications.

 

He loved being a superhero, and he wouldn't stop trying to do good until his dying breath, but he couldn't ignore the coming future when he walked through the halls of school. His classmates were starting to think about what schools they wanted to go to and what they could put on their applications. Sure he'd given it a little thought-- Mr. Stark liked to jibe abut MIT, and he had thought about Empire State University. There were just a lot of factors he had to think about. May would support him no matter what he wanted to do, but there was only so much she could do for him financially. If he couldn't rack up some decent scholarships, he could end up at community college for a couple years.

 

Not that there was anything wrong with community college. It just didn't seem like it was a good fit for him.

 

Ever since what had happened at Homecoming, Mr. Stark had been checking on him more frequently, but still rather haphazardly. He said something again about breaking the cycle, and he really seemed to want to be a sort of mentor to Peter. A lot of the time it was stilted and awkward, but it felt like he and Mr. Stark were getting closer. Thinking about it made him giddy. Just a little. Aside from stilted small talk, they only talked about superhero stuff-- which he didn't mind! --but sometimes he wanted to talk about science. About where he'd be in just a couple of years.

 

He remembers when he argued with Ned, who thought he was being an idiot who was going to drop out of high school. Peter had been an idiot. God, he was so stupid a few months ago.

 

One day, he's at the new Avenger's compound, there for the weekend to work on hiss suit repairs for Mr. Stark and do some training. There's a lot on his mind, and he doesn't quite know how to phrase what he wants to say. As a result he's unusually quiet.

 

“Um-- Mr. Stark? Uh. I just-- Do you think-- Uhmm--”

 

“Spit it out, kid.”

 

“Do you think I could, uh, do some actual internship things? I mean, like, uh, lab work?” Peter paused for a second, and at the lack of an immediate response, he began to ramble. “And research? I know it's just a front for me going on patrol, but I really like science and working with different technology. Like, uh, how I made my web shooters and stuff? I just, um. I heard that a lot of people don't get to do research until college, and then some professors don't really take in freshman, but, uh, I know you, and I guess this is dumb to ask, because if a professor at a university wouldn't wasn't anything from me, then what would--”

 

“Slow down, underoos,” Stark said, holding up his hands and giving Peter more of his attention. “Look, I can't promise you'll get to work with me or even work on anything all that major. You're right about the web shooters, though, so I'll see what I can do and get you something to play with down in R&D. Okay?”

 

“Yes, thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. Stark. I mean it--”

 

“Yeah, yeah, I know, kid, I'll be in touch. And it's _Tony_.”

 

-

 

 

The next time Peter is at Stark Industries, he gets an actual ID badge, and he's led to R&D instead of Tony's personal lab. The department is a lot messier than he pictures, with machine and cords everywhere, the whole space filled with the sound of electric humming. It was exciting enough that the noise didn't even bother him. The memory of that OsCorp field trip came to mind, but he quickly pushed that thought away.

 

Within the week, Peter had heard back from Mr. Stark. The Avenger's headquarters had moved, but not everyone who worked in the tower was going to be relocated upstate. Stark Industries still functioned within NYC, and Peter would be doing intern work there during the week. It was mostly the business end with only a few labs, but Peter sure wasn't complaining.

 

“You must be Peter.” Turning around, Peter saw a regular looking man with an SI badge reaching out to shake his hand. No lab coat or fancy get up. He took the man's hand and shook. “I'm Dr. Leon Byrd, I have a lab here on this floor. Stark had me set aside a small project for you to work on, so follow me.”

 

“It's nice to meet you, Dr. Byrd.” There was a project set aside just for _him_ , and Peter couldn't deny his excitement as he followed Dr. Byrd to a desk with a computer and a StarkPad on a stand. Fancy.

 

“Before you get started on anything, I've brought up some literature I want you to read. I don't expect you to understand it all, so feel free to come to me with questions when you're done, okay?” Dr. Byrd, clapped Peter on the back encouragingly. “I have a daughter about your age. Couldn't sway her to hard science, but she's going to to do research in social work.”

 

With that, Dr. Byrd let Peter know where to find him and left. It was almost quiet, bt he could still hear the subtle whirring of the tech around him. This wasn't exactly what he had been expecting, but it made sense when he thought about it. Did he really think he'd be able to jump into a project without any real background? With righteous determination he sat down and set in on the papers, ready to jot down notes and questions on the StarkPad.

 

Three hours later, Peter's brain felt numb. He had gotten through a few papers, then talked about them with Dr. Byrd when he came back to check in. The jargon was all so... dense. He'd mostly understood, but reading published research was more different than hiss own research than he'd thought it would be.

 

“I've been a mentor to quite a few people, grad students and post docs. I'm not sure Tony Stark ever got to have that experience on either end of it, not really,” Dr. Byrd said as they were wrapping things up. “I think he's trying to with you, even if it might seem like he's putting me in that role. Now, I'm not going to pry or pretend I know Mr. Stark that well, but I'm looking forward to getting to know the young man who finally got Stark to want a student.”

 

Peter left with the StarkPad and more papers to read. Dr. Byrd said there wasn't much reason for him to come in until next week, once he was caught up with the literature. He'd tried to say he didn't need the tablet, but he gave in since it was the only way he had to access the papers. Did Mr. Stark like him? Just thinking about it was wild.

 

He had a bad feeling he was going to blurt out something stupid when he next saw Mr. Stark.

 

-

 

The rest of Peter's week went pretty smoothly. Mostly. It was his usual. May knew about him being Spiderman, and they had already gone through all the drama that entailed. He had a curfew, a few more rules, and, despite claiming not to like the man, she would get Mr. Stark and gang up on him when she saw fit.

 

He took the StarkPad nearly everywhere with him, reading papers at school between class periods and maybe sometimes during class periods. If he wasn't too tired, he'd read after patrol, too. There was a sense off smug satisfaction when Flash came up at lunch to mock him only to balk at the StarkPad and SI ID he was showing to Ned. Now that he actually _was_ an intern, he had tangible evidence. Hell, even Michelle seem impressed when she made wry comment on how ID badges are actually dehumanizing despite having names on them.

 

“Dude, this is so cool. Can I see the StarkPad? Is there anything on it besides the papers? Do you get to keep it? Do you think Mr. Stark is keeping track of what you do on it like with the suit?” Ned shot off question and question, Peter promised to let him see it when they next hung out after school.

 

“And be quiet about the suit. Someone's gonna hear you one of these days.”

 

-

 

Thursday evening, Peter got a text from Mr. Stark. He'd be coming down to the Avenger's Compound again this weekend, but mostly as an intern. They were going to work in Mr. Stark's on whatever 'unpublishable' research meant. Was it Avenger's related? He haphazardly typed out and sent all sort of messages with questions, which only earned him what seemed to be an exasperated _'I'll see you tomorrow kid.'_

 

“So you're only going this weekend to do internship things, right?” Aunt May asked in the morning. Mr. Stark had to get her permission before he could go upstate, and she seemed more than happy to let him go when it was just for academics. “If I find out there's some crazy mission, we'll be having words, Pete.”

 

“Yeah, yeah, it's just science.” He grabbed his stuff, throwing his backpack over his arms and kissing May on the cheek before running out. “Happy is picking me up after school. No promises on the mission thing if something comes up. Love you, bye!”

 

All he heard before he slammed the door behind him was an exasperated scoff.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patience is a virtue. No amount of hold ups will keep Peter from getting to the lab.

“Where do you think you're going so fast, Penis Parker?”

 

Peter's day at school had been blessedly average for the most part: classes were fine, no pop quizzes, only the usual jibes from Flash. Unfortunately, the usual didn't seem to be enough for Flash, who caught him by his backpack, pulling him back from his sprint out of school to where he would be meeting Happy. He suppressed a groan and turned to face Flash.

 

“School's over. I'm just heading out like anyone else.”

 

“C'mon, Penis, there's no rush. It's not like your pal Iron Man would be out there waiting for you.” Flash clamped an arm around Peter's shoulders, walking with him at a pace much slower than Peter would have liked. “You're just a lousy, high school intern. Why they'd waste time and money baby proofing the place for you, though, is a mystery for the ages.”

 

“There actually is someone out there waiting for me, so I _really_ need to get going, Flash.” Peter could feel the vibration from a text in his pocket. Happy was probably getting annoyed at how long he was taking. They may have been on better terms , but Peter didn't want to do anything that might set that back.

 

“Yeah? Well, I want to come with and see who's bothering to pick up someone as unreliable as you. Something that unlikely needs witnesses.”

 

“Fine,” Peter huffed. “You can come see, but you'll have to keep up.”

 

Shrugging the arm off his shoulder, Peter took off down the hall in a light sprint. He felt something like satisfaction when an indignant “Hey!” sounded ff behind him, followed by hurried footsteps.

 

-

 

“Does the kid always take this long?” Tony Stark asked from the back of the car. He'd already been informed by several parties, including FRIDAY, that trying to get into the school to find the kid himself was a bad idea. Although, he had half a mind to do it anyway.

 

“I don't know,” Happy answered, sending off another text message. “Usually he'd be nearly the first one out here. Maybe he was held up by... uh. Whatever it is high school kids do.”

 

Sighing dramatically, Tony leaned back in his seat, looking out the window and towards the school. This time, he found something he didn't know what to make of when he scanned the area for Peter. While he'd finally spotted his unusually illusive protégé, it very much looked like he was running over with another student chasing after.

 

God, kids were weird.

 

Tony, at least, was ready for it when the kid slammed into the side of the car with enough force that he almost fell in through the open window. His expression read as annoyed, but this was probably the most entertaining thing he had seen all day.

 

“Mr. Stark...!”

 

“Nice going, Penis Parker. Did you hurt your-- Oh, shit.”

 

The other kid had caught up at about the same time that Peter noticed Tony was in the car. They both looked flabbergasted, and the look on Peter's face had gotten old about a month ago. Tony slid his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose, looking over at the boys. “Huh. That's probably the dumbest name I've ever heard a bully use. Get in the car, Pete. Chop, chop, we're on a schedule here.”

 

Peter snapped into action, climbing into the car and rolling up the window before the other kid could catch up. “Bye, Flash, see you next week! Hi, Happy. Hi, Mr. Stark. We should go now.”

 

“Kids,” Happy muttered from the front seat, pulling away from the curb and onto the road. Peter both slumped back into his seat and managed to look more jumpy than relieved. “Seat belt, kid!”

 

“Sorry,” Peter called back, strapping on his seat belt in record time. With everything settled, he looked back over at Tony, who was sat in the back with him. “Hi, Mr. Stark. Uh. What brings you to the city?”

 

“I had some business to do, and I thought, hey, it would be convenient to plan it out to kill two birds with one stone and have us head up state at the same time. Besides, this way we can talk here and then get right into it when we reach the compound.” Tony leaned back, aloof as ever. “So. What was all that about?”

 

“Oh. That? That was just Flash.” Peter was playing with the hem of his shirt, hands full of nervous energy. “He's no big deal, just a classmates. We're both on the Academic Decathlon team. He's kind of had it out for me since Freshman year, but it's nothing that bad. Like, uh, he never believed that I actually had a Stark internship, and I guess he was kind of right, but I actually have one now for real, so I have like, the badge and stuff, so now there's real evidence and stuff, and he didn't seem to like that. It's no big deal, though, he doesn't bother me. That's, like, kindergarten stuff. It doesn't even phase me.”

 

“You're rambling, kid,” Tony said, cutting him off. “I won't be worried until your black eyes come from school instead of your patrols. Did you think I was going to have a talk with your little pal Iron Man to man? I'm not going to do that. Unless you really want me to.”

 

Peter couldn't help but gape, looking like a fish with his mouth hanging open. He started to sputter out a response when Tony cut him off with a laugh.

 

“I'm just kidding. That would be a PR nightmare, and I do not have the time for that. Come on, I want to talk to you about what you'll be doing this weekend.”

 

-

 

Peter eventually managed to relax, and the rest of the car rude upstate was spent talking to Tony about what he should be expecting. 'Unpublishable research' had been referring to Spidey stuff: experimenting with his web fluid and working on his suit.

 

“Those webs would make for one hell of a research paper, but it would put your identity at risk, and this isn't the kind of thing you want people to be able to replicate. You can't exactly patent it as Spider-Man, either.”

 

Mr. Stark's lab at the Avenger's Compound was going to function as a place where he could safely experiment with and manufacture his web fluid. It was in everyone's best interest if Peter stopped making it in his chemistry class on the sly.

 

“I'll be around and about to help out. If I'm being honest, I've wanted to run some tests on those webs for a while now. Oh, and if you're having any problems with your project with Dr. Byrd, I'm here to help with that too. We can hash it out. You can ask me any questions you have, and you have my word that I won't think you're stupid for it. Scout's Honor.”

 

Once they got upstate, they were going to spend the rest of the day in Tony's lab, so that Peter could settle into a work station and start learning the ropes. Peter was incredibly excited that he was getting his own station in _Tony Stark's lab_ , and he so wanted to bounce in his seat like a little kid. He had to be mature though. Yep. This was a grown up lab. For grown up scientists.

 

_It was going to be so cool. God, he couldn't wait to tell Ned about it._

 

When Tony told him that he may run into some of the Avengers, he may have bounced a little. Just a little bit. Really, though, it was stressed to him that it would be Peter's decision if he wanted anyone to know that he was Spider-Man. If he just wanted to be Peter Parker, intern to Tony Stark and an anomaly and a half, that was fine. He was going to have to think about that one.

 

-

 

“Alright kiddo, here's the lab. Don't touch anything yet.”

 

Peter was, without a doubt, nerding out. Everything was so high-tech, and, because it was such a new lab, it looked really neat and slick. “I get to have a station in here? Oh my god, that's so cool. Thank you, Mr. Stark. Thank you so much, oh my god.”

 

“It's Tony, kid, and you're welcome.” Tony walked over to a mostly empty spot in the lab. It wasn't in the middle of everything, but it wasn't isolated either. “You get to sit over here.”

 

Jogging over, Peter was caught between the thought of hugging Tony and ogling over _his_ work station. What he ended up doing was something caught in between the two, and it resulted in Tony Stark awkwardly peeling off the intern partway glommed onto him. “I love it.”

 

“Right.” Tony cleared his throat. “You're going to be working with Dr. Byrd on growing materials, so I want to do some work with your web fluid and give you a taste of what that involves. We're going to take a sample and run x-ray diffraction to see what we can learn about the structure of your webs. Are you with me?”

 

“Yeah, yes.” Peter was listening intently, eager as ever, and Tony gave him a look that seemed fond, if he dared to think so.

 

“Good. Let's get started.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was about the same size as the last. I maybe have spent a little too much time dawdling with flash at the beginning, but I feel like it all served a purpose.
> 
> As for the science, I'll probably be focusing on relaying the material science aspects, as that's what 'm most familiar with. Even then, I'm a theorist and not an experimentalist. Mostly, I don't want to alienate my audience with science talk that only people in the field would get the full meaning from. Finding that balance is a wip. I'll try to write more about the lab work in the future.
> 
> My research paper isn't coming along nearly as well as this fic.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm thinking I'll continue this at some point. I still want to write more with the actual research process and the mentor relationships Peter is developing. I have some ideas: Flash's bullying getting worse, general superhero mishaps. You know, the usual.
> 
> The name Leon Byrd may be mostly ripped from two professors in my department whoops.
> 
> I wrote this instead of my research paper rip


End file.
